Shot can stop deadly outbreak

Hepatitis A is one of those diseases that should no longer exist. An effective vaccine has existed since 1996. Even then, the disease was rare, affecting only about 31,000 Americans a year. Since the vaccine became available, infections fell to fewer than 1,500 cases in 2015.

In recent months, though, it has been killing people and making headlines across the country, including here in southeast Michigan. We are not the only region having a deadly outbreak of the disease. Kentucky, Utah, Colorado and California are also reporting worrisome outbreaks.

Health officials at all levels seem puzzled about where the outbreaks are coming from. The particular virus involved in the epidemics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, links the different outbreaks.

Officials are more clear about what is keeping the epidemics alive, though. There are three factors:

•Many victims are people who inject themselves with illicit drugs. It is another lethal symptom of the opioid epidemic. Prescription opioids have led many to heroin addiction, and heroin has exposed them to a variety of infectious diseases, including hepatitis A. Eighty percent of the hepatitis A victims have had to be hospitalized; many have died.

•The homeless are also over-represented among the outbreak’s victims. Person-to-person contact is the most common way the disease is spread. Good hygiene stops it.

•Third, most people have not been vaccinated. That is especially true of adults who stopped getting their shots before about 1996.

When the disease was rare, nobody needed a vaccine because any one person’s chances of coming into contact with someone infected with virus was so infinitesimally small. That obviously is not true any more. Ask residents of Algonac, who were shaken by a hepatitis A scare in October. It can happen here and it can affect you.

That is half the reason you should get vaccinated against hepatitis A. The other half is to protect the people you love and otherwise come into contact with. Hepatitis A is highly contagious and easy to spread. If you catch it, you don’t want to pass it on — because some people don’t show symptoms, you could do it without knowing.

The St. Clair County Health Department is making it easy to get vaccinated. It is having vaccine clinics Jan. 10 at the Fort Gratiot township hall, Jan. 11 at Pine Shores Golf Club in St. Clair, and Jan. 17 at McMorran Place in Port Huron. It also has walk-in clinics Mondays at the health department. The shot is covered by insurance. If you don’t have insurance, the department provides it free. You also can get it from your doctor.